Marrying George Clooney

My Dad died a year ago. My Mom died ten years before that. Ever since my Mom died I’ve been having recurring dreams where Mom in fact is not dead, but alive and living with my father in her pre-Alzheimer’s, cognitive, rational state, but somehow still not completely there. And since Dad’s death, I have been dreaming about the two of them, living together in the home I grew up in, where they lived inseparably for over forty years and where my Dad remained until four months before his death when he came to live with me.

Frequently in my dreams I am aware that I am dreaming. I usually realize I am dreaming when something unreal or frightening occurs – I find I am flying and suddenly I realize that birds fly, humans don’t or I am on an airplane that is crashing and I decide I don’t want to crash and I change the dream so the plane lifts back into the air and then I realize that it must only be a dream. Lucid dreams they call that. The dream is very, very real – more real than your waking life – but at the same time, you realize that you are not in your waking state because the world you are encountering is not obeying the natural laws of nature you have come to know and that you “know” are absolute. People don’t fly and planes can’t be lifted back into the sky by force of will when they are crashing. And parents don’t come back to life after they die. I frequently remember these dreams because I will wake up soon after I realize I am dreaming – usually at 3 o’clock in the morning (when I get up to pee anyway and take my thyroid pill so I won’t have to wait a half hour after I take the pill in the morning before I can have my first cup of coffee).

Living with Dad when he was dying changed my life profoundly. It brought me closer to death than I have ever been. It showed me – quite clearly – how finite life as we know it is. It also gave me a much deeper understanding of who my Dad was than I had had in the 50 years before that. Sitting with him on the couch, not speaking – Dad didn’t really talk much anyway – knowing that we were losing each other, I came to understand him, to feel his presence in a way that I never had before – to know his soul so to speak.

Since he died, my dreams now include him as a much more active participant in the dreams about my mother. Maybe I am more aware of his being there because I am so much more aware that he isn’t here anymore and it snaps me into that “lucid” state. They are almost always at home which makes a lot of sense because they were almost always at home. Dad was a “home-body” who was most comfortable in his small, familiar house. Mom liked to “get out” more than he did and he “gave her a long leash”. She was active in politics which gave her a social life and an identity independent of my father, and at the same time kept her very close to my father – in the 1960’s and 70’s few other men would have allowed her that autonomy. Mom would have liked to have moved – to a bigger house, a new community maybe – but Dad loved his little house and Mom loved Dad so there they stayed. He stayed there and kept Mom there with him after she started to deteriorate into the shadows and ultimately the darkness of Alzheimer’s. He insisted on caring for her and refused to allow her to suffer the indignity of a nursing home, refused to turn responsibility for her care over to people who did not love her the way that he did. After Mom died, I tried to get my Dad to come live closer to me. He refused. He wanted to stay in his home and was determined to do it for as long as he could. He considered alternatives. He realized that he probably would not be able to stay there forever, so he investigated his options. For ten years. I always assumed that he would come when he had to come- when he was no longer able to live there by himself. And I worried about him because he a man in his mid-eighties shouldn’t be living by himself.

Last night – well no, tonight since it’s now 5 AM and I woke up an hour ago – I again dreamed of my parents. I was at their house and noticed that there was a table covered with paperwork. They were both there, although as I think about it, I didn’t actually see them, I just knew that they were there. I looked at the paperwork. There were bills and there was a real estate listing for a piece of property. I thought “Oh, so Dad’s considering moving” and felt relief that he would no longer be living alone. But then I thought, “but Mom’s here, he isn’t by himself” but then I thought “but Dad died and Dad isn’t here either” and I looked down at the paperwork, desperate to find a date on the paperwork to see if it was before or after Dad died – to put a time frame onto what I now realized must be a dream because Mom and Dad hadn’t lived together for over eleven years and Dad hasn’t been alive for almost a year. I woke up crying. I miss them both very much and the feeling was overwhelming.

As I lay in bed reflecting on the dream I suddenly understood it and all the dreams I’ve had about them. I realized in a flash of insight that Dad did not live in that house alone for ten years. He lived with my mother as he had always lived with my mother in that house and that is why he didn’t want to leave it. And he lived with her as she was, not as the woman she became as her mind slipped from her grasp. Every day when he woke up, she was there. And they are still there somehow. Because they were there. Death doesn’t erase a person. People don’t cease to be just because their bodies have died. They were here and they will always be.

today i ache for her. she has been gone since the 4th of may. ours was a difficult relationship, but none the less, the last few years were filled with much joy and comaraderie. i missed her today for all the small things: the phone calls, the wishing me a safe flight “take a safe plane” she would say when we were traveling a bit of a distance. then the call i would make as soon as i landed, so she knew i – we – arrived safely.

She had dementia. It was cruel and uncompromising.  Grabbing you by the heart & soul and it doesn’t let you out of it’s grip. She once said she had no idea who she was any more:  like her body and her mind were taking different walks. The thing about demenia, it’s like a runaway train. There are moments, actual moments, when you think yes oh yes the breaks are going to stop. finally. there will be relief, but then it only slows down, and then… oh my god…

and coupled with that, there’s the whole sibling dynamic. which makes it all so much harder and much more painful, and so much intertwined that gets caught in the branches. the one thing i realized, that i finally understood with every fiber in my being. no one NOT ONE PERSON loves another person the same. we all love differently, and for brothers and sisters, and sisters and sisters and brothers and brothers… how we each love, care for, understand, need, nurture, fight with, argue with, make up  with our parents  …  it’s all different. we love, each of us, in our own way. and no one should judge, or at least try not to, how we love another person.

today my heart aches because i wish i could tell her that i’m having a shitty day so she could say, “you know i hate hearing unpleasant news, call me when you feel better…”

i wish i could call her when i feel better later today.

Gary didn’t much believe in the afterlife.

He didn’t.

He wasn’t a spiritual type.

He played the stock market, and often described events and people in ‘market’ terms.

He believed in living in the moment, being completely and utterly true to his word, and living life fully. He was cool and sexy and rode a motorcycle, and owned a hugely successful bar (actually two) in New York City and had a bunch of young and sexy girlfriends – as in ‘gold bullion digging’ young, sexy girls – who didn’t have a clue how lucky they were that they were with him, because, well, he had a wonderful big gigantic heart. They didn’t care much about that because what they saw was the long hair, and the sexy face, and the gorgeous eyes, and the Harley Davidson that was parked outside the Bar, and of course, they saw the Bar with the cash register that went ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching every single minute on every single night, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when you couldn’t even get into the Bar because it was so crowded. I asked him once, while a few young sexily clad women were draped and hanging all over him, what it felt like to be Mick Jagger, he said, “Good, real fucking good. This pays dividends.”

Gary died in a motorcycle accident. But before he died in a motorcycle accident, he went to the Caribbean, where his boat capsized and he was all alone, literally, in the middle of the ocean, clinging to both his life for four days, and a new found God, and it appeared that God found him, and he, Gary, said he remembered so much while his skin was literally baking in the sun: every nuance of his life flashed in front of him. He begged for forgiveness, he screamed at injustice, he wept at his horrible relationship with his parents, he was pissed at himself that he let the one girl he loved get away, he was out-loud livid that two of his close friends screwed him out of money, he was grateful that he could build a bar, and refurbish all the rooms in his gorgeous townhouse with his bare hands, he was deeply appreciative that he was generous and kind and that he truly deeply loved life. And he also, while baking in the sun, remembered that a psychic told him that he would die before he was fifty, and that in fact his death would be categorized as two fold, because he would actually “die twice.”

“What fucking bullshit. No one can die twice.”

He swore that the psychic ‘broad’ was completely nuts, “a fucking fruitcake.”

So, while he was both clinging to life and the capsized boat, he made a deal with God, to let him live just a little longer so he can make sure that he said good bye properly to all the folks he loved.

He lived just another year or so.

And in that year or so he prayed everyday to God, he went to church, he became a born-again, he found peace and faith, he gained weight, and met a woman who was close to his age and had some poundage, and one could even categorize her as an Earth Mother, and what was most beautiful about her was in fact her spirit and her laugh and the lines around her eyes. I told him she was the sexiest woman he had ever been with. “Yeah,” he said, “This one’s a triple AAA rating.”

And in that year or so, he managed to tell everyone he loved that he loved them all dearly and with all his heart. And a few folks who screwed him royally, he told them to rethink their lives. And a couple of the girls who draped themselves over him, he managed to tell them to stop hanging on to men, stand tall, and don’t give it away to some schmuck who has a wad of money and no intent on ever getting married.

He was killed in a motorcycle accident. Coming home from Long Island on one of those long crazy summer weekends.

He would tell you, if he were alive, that yes, that was in fact called two fold, and the first time he died – clinging to life on a capsized boat – that in fact it was he who saved himself, but he gave all the credit to God, because he made a deal, and Gary never reneged on a deal.

1) the kidney gucci rabbi politician thing. can’t shake it.

2) the ugly truth. a bad movie written by 3 women. excuse me, write a good movie that’s about real shit that women can identify with. please, just try it. romantic doesn’t mean crude or sloppy or ignorant or misogynist. it means sexy. as in passion & lust & fighting & making up & breaking up & making up & smart, witty, fiery, snappy  dialogue… it’s not that women aren’t given ample opportunities, it’s that a “couple” of women think most women want this dribble. HEY, NEWS… WE DON’T.

3) my mom’s wedding band, which was supposed to be sent to me after she died, but it seems, was given…hmmmmm … to my niece. a long trail of family nasty.

4) mani. pedi. peri. meni.

5) McFacials. With fries.

I am a firm believer that there are no coincidences in life. And I have plotted and planned more coincidences than I care to remember. Like my serendipitous ‘run in’ with a guy I had a mad puppy crush on: “Oh my god, can you believe that here we both are in an Appalachian village in rural Virginia at the same time? Is this not fate, is this not a sign?”

Yes, it was sign that I was cuckoo.

The Ansonia Hotel sits on a corner of 73^rd street and Broadway. A massive gothic building that is known for its spook factor along with its famous and infamous residents. Everyone from Babe Ruth to Angelina Jolie has lived there. It was also known for both the Continental Baths, and Plato’s Retreat. And while nudity had absolutely nothing to do with why I was there, let’s just say when you’re visiting a clairvoyant there is a sense that they are in fact seeing right through you. This was in the 70’s, and along with the whole couple swapping, orgy, free love, Bette Midler/Barry Manilow gay baths scene, there was a whole other scene taking place: clairvoyant readings, psychics, tea leaf readings, séances, and astrologers. It was the place to go for any sort of spiritual craving.

My friend – who I dragged along – and I went to see Reverend Madame, a very tall, very large woman who wore a long white robe, and turban, and wore strands of heavy necklaces that would actually clank when she walked. She was very well known among the clairvoyant set, and very particular, and folks waited outside her apartment, in the hallway, where a take-a-check not unlike the one you find in a Bakery was standing, so that each of us would have a number when and if we were called, or plucked out of the line. Chosen. This was all a part of the scene, the mystique. She could only see  – read, intuit – twenty people in one session. That’s it. No more. More than twenty would ‘fog’ her energy field and she couldn’t read, or see, or intuit anyone or anything. Her whole pricing plan was based on ‘a donation,’ because when you are a true psychic intuit clairvoyant reader, it’s a calling, and therefore one should not charge for it. But if you are paying rent, or have a mortgage, or wear a lot of jewelry, you need a little bit of dough to get you through the lean months. The minimum donation was twenty dollars. I gave the minimum, as did my friend, who begrudgingly placed the twenty on the ‘donation’ plate. I would wager that a good many of us waiting to see her made the decision to give up eating for a few days so that we could catch a glimpse of her brilliance and insight.

So, there we are, standing on a long, long line, with a bunch of other hopefuls. I felt like I was auditioning for A Chorus Line. And then my friend and I get plucked out, along with another woman who looks awfully familiar to me, like I knew her, or had seen her, but couldn’t place her. But she had that familiarity of a person long lost. We gather in a room, a living room, and candles are lit everywhere, very seductive, very moody. We sit in a semi-circle. A chair, a huge wooden chair – a throne type chair – is placed up front, facing the semi-circle. We all take a seat, and wait. We’re asked, by a small thin guy with a bad haircut, to be very, very still, Reverend Madame likes quiet and still, she needs quiet, if there’s noise it will unsettle and unravel her and then she can’t and won’t be able to do a reading. Uh oh. I can’t help it. It’s very hard for me to just sit. I am trying to be quiet, to be still. My friend is fidgety. Crossing her legs, uncrossing her legs, trying to find a place for her hands, and arms, folded, to the side, on her lap.

A few moments pass. The woman from the line, the one I felt this connection to sits directly across from me. She is very pretty, really beautiful, and there is something, something, I can’t quite pinpoint, but it just seems awfully …like I know her, or have seen her. I’m trying to place her. I ask my friend, in a whisper, if she seems familiar, she shakes her head, no.

Oh, the big moment. The lights dim, the candles flicker, and Reverend Madame walks in, followed by two very young handsome and shirtless men. Her concuboys. She sits on her throne; they kneel on either side of her. See this is what I want, I want a throne, or at the very least a big comfy chair, with two men on either side of me and they don’t need to be shirtless, they just need to be able to kneel.  She says a prayer, a few things that are in tongues, and then the shaking of the head and a couple of body spasms, and then she says we can either write down one question on a piece of paper, and yes, a pad and a pen will be handed to each of us, or we can simply stand and ask our one question. I chose the pad and pen. I write my question. My question is:

Is my boyfriend Jonnie Brenner cheating on me? And does she see an Academy Award in my future, or any gold trophy?

I know, two questions. I was pushing my luck.

Here’s the money question: What do you think the chances are that two women in that room on that day ask the same exact question about the same exact guy? One of the women lives in New York City, the other woman lives on Long Island and their boyfriend; the cheating motherfucker lives out in Queens. What do you think the odds are that both of them are in the same building on the Upper West Side, in the same Clairvoyant’s living room, at the same exact hour, on the same exact date? Slim to none?

This is what happens: Reverend Madame closes her eyes, puts her hand in the fishbowl and pulls out a question. She reminds us to please stand up after she asks the question so that she can look directly at the person she is speaking to.

This is the question Reverend Madame reads from the piece of paper in her hand: “Is my boyfriend Jonnie Brenner cheating on me?”

I stand up, and the beautiful girl across from me, the one who looks so familiar, also stands up. We are looking right at each other. The Reverend asks which one of us asked the question. We both raise our hands. There is dead silence. Well, she says, I guess your question is now very clearly answered. Yes, he is cheating on you.

There are how many women in New York City? And how many of them have boyfriends that are cheating on them? Well, I guess that doesn’t narrow the field much, but what are the odds – like twelve million to one – that the two women who are being cheated on by the same motherfucker guy are in the same exact room, in the same exact place, asking the same exact question to the same exact woman named Reverend Madame?

And because this was not the era of cell-phones or text messaging, or caller ID, we – the two of us – go down to a payphone in the lobby of the Ansonia, standing nose to nose in a phone booth.  She dials his number, because she knows it by heart, and when he – Jonnie Brenner – answers his phone, we scream in unison:

“You cheating piece of shit.”

And then we – the two of us – part ways.  I mean, really, what do you say: Gee, you’re the one he was calling every fucking twenty minutes when we went to the movies and dinner, because he told me that his mother was very, very sick, and he was just so fucking worried about her? Nah. I don’t think so. You’re the one he was fucking when I was calling him and he wasn’t answering the phone for three fucking days, and he lied to me and told me that his frigging phone was broken and he was waiting for a repairman…  for three fucking days? Nah, I don’t think so. And then I wonder what kind of bullshit excuse was he giving her when she asked the same exact questions? Nah, I don’t want to go there.

I went back to my apartment, she went home to Manhasset, Jonnie ended up in rehab for drug and alcohol abuse, and my friend, the one who I dragged with me, stayed for the rest of the clairvoyant readings with Reverend Madame, ended up having a torrid love affair with one of the shirtless men, and moved to Colorado, where they have lived together for over 30 years.

Un-fucking-believable.

Or not. Depending on how you feel about coincidences.

okay. question. what is faith?

is it trust? as in: barney’s just sent me a “70% off everything” sale postcard, and when i get there, there will be clothing and shoes that fit – that i want and need and must MUST have.

is it spiritual? as in: please, please, please i will do anything ANYTHING just make this happen for me now. I put this out in the universe, and i know KNOW it will come back to me bigger and more and better than i ever hoped possible. Right?

is it in others? as in: oh my god but you said, okay maybe not said with words, but with your actions, you said it with your actions … that you were so much better than me, and i believed you. and  guess what, in the universal scheme of things, you’re not better than me.

in ourselves? as in: please please please PLEASE don’t let me fuck up. not today, today is a big important day and i must be centered and clear headed, and focused, yes, focused, I have faith in myself. and i trust that the universe will hear me.

it’s 1:17 in the morning, you’re a sleep, or at least pretending to be so i won’t annoy you with some trivial question like why is liquid soap so gooey sometimes. i know, i know, not important enough to shake you awake. but you seem to have the answers to so many of my truly peculiar questions. today when we were walking the down the street, i could feel that we were a perfect fit. not too tall, not too short … just right, as baby bear would say. What inspired me to pieces was that we’ve been walking down many streets together for over 16 years now, and i guess we’ve always fit, i just – truthfully – didn’t notice. it was the call in on NPR today that brought me to tears, the young girl from Texas, who was working two jobs, just to make a couple of bucks extra a week to buy a CD, or to take her boyfriend dinner at perkins. all she was hoping for was an extra 20. i sob hearing that story. it makes me realize the depth of fortune, the profundity of the space that envelopes me, regardless of size — it is mine and I know it, and it will not be taken for granted again. 15 million on minimum wage. going up to 7 bucks and change. I watch you sleep. you work hard,  you love me good, you take so little for granted, you give and share and create magic in your garden. you make our world gorgeous and lush and oh so comfortable, and i curl up in the big chair and I watch you in complete awe.

sometimes it’s kinda hard to figure out what you’re gonna say to the very person you see day in and day out, something that’s not a cliche, or typical. it takes effort to make something, anything have a bit of a fresh kick to it. so i move over to you as you lie down sleeping, and i crawl under the covers and I tell you that luck was only a tiny piece. the other piece was being smart enough to recognize a really truly good thing when i saw it.  you are such a good man, i whisper in your ear.

I could swear you smile.

can someone explain this to me? i am so fucking confused. okay, so there were a bunch of politicians & a few rabbi’s (which i don’t know about you, but sounds awfully like the beginning of a joke … 3 mayors and a rabbi walk into a bar…) who were in the kidney/counterfeit goods business – holy shit – bribery, corruption, laundering millions of dollars, not to mention selling faux purses and such on every fucking corner in New York City. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum was charged with conspiring to arrange the sale of an Israeli citizen’s kidney for $160,000 (that’s one hundred and sixty grand) for a transplant for the informant’s fictitious (FICTITIOUS) uncle. He — Rosenbaum –  was quoted as saying he had been arranging the sale of kidneys for 10 years.

10 years? Fictitious uncle? 160 grand for a kidney.

and let’s not forget 60 bucks, okay 45 depending on the corner, for a fucking “goo-chi.”

i’m going to bed, and when i wake up i want this to be a make-believe nightmare.

he is sleeping soundly. until i say, oh shit, then he rumbles and removes his eye mask and squints at me and asks: whatcha doing? i tell him i’m writing a blog. he says, a blog? i say yeah. since when he asks? since when i say with a hint of attitude… since this is what i’ve been doing since my book is coming out really really soon and since it’s all about my being wide awake and writing @ 3am, and then he says something obnoxious, which quite honestly, i don’t remember because, well… he started off with a comment and turned it into a weird bizarro rap song, which then became a big downer real quickly. just imagine all the words that rhyme with blog … fog, log, hog, snog, gutterbog, clog, mog, fartfog, asshog, fuckyourog…  ah, you get it.

and then then then he says: you know what i’d like to do -i’d like to spend as much time on your lap as your frickin’ computer. fat chance (i think to myself) oh honey that’s so sweet, i say. and then i say: did you just say you wanna spend as much time on my lap as my frickin’ computer? and he says, yeah.

a moment or two of radio silence.

how about tomorrow, i ask?

tomorrow’s good, he says.

my iKen.

this is a true story, told from the ‘person’ point of view.

as i watch my 2 little sweet cats all curled up around each other.

we adopted them (a year ago this week…). we — okay, i – had no idea they were both girls. i was told by the somewhat odd & strange manager at the humane society that lotus (who was then named guy) was a boy. okay. a boy & girl. fine. but a few weeks later when we – okay, i – brought them in for their shots and such, i was informed that both were girls. yay. i re-sent the birth/adoption announcement stating: oooops. not a boy and girl, TWO GIRLS – as you can imagine, we are thrilled beyond belief. so, i set the record straight.

they play, they laugh, they fight, they hiss, they snap at each other, they run, and run some more, and knock things over and they race through both our house, and when in the city, our apartment, and break a few very lovely items that we have had for many many years. i bite my tongue and say nothing. i take a valium…

and then one day, i return from doing mindless errands, and i find them…in the bed… having sex.

OH MY GOD. they’re lesbians. i quickly pick up the cell phone and call ken who is working, and he whispers into the phone as to not attract attention: yeah, what’s up? he asks. I say, bella & lotus are lesbians, they’re having sex in the bedroom, what should i do?

without missing a beat:

get out the room, and close the door. you know how much you hate when they’re watching us…

yes, but we’re only sleeping, i say.

oh, yeah, he says, see that, i have no memory.

yes, i say, but you have such hope.